The Obamaian persuasion in American politics

One of the essential elements in President Obama’s transformation of the United States is a transformation in the understanding of the American people in the basic principles of political right. Obama is a proponent of the Progressive faith and its assault on the founding principles of the United States.

The Founders of the United States understood the protection of property rights to be bound up with freedom itself. “In a word,” James Madison explained, “as a man is said to have a right to his property, he may be equally said to have a property in his rights….” The Founders thus incorporated numerous provisions in the Constitution and Bill of Rights to protect the property rights of citizens from the power of the government.

The Founders thought that at some point the government had enough power. Obama, however, is a devout believer in unlimited government. The common denominator among so-called health care reform and financial regulatory reform as well and other elements of Obama’s program is the augmented power they confer on the government in general and the executive branch in particular.

There are a lot of wealthy, successful Americans who agree with me — because they want to give something back. They know they didn’t — look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own. I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something — there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.

Obama continued:

If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.

Certain deductions or inferences follow from Obama’s teaching. There is no just limit on the power of the government to take your property. Your property isn’t yours. What the government does not take from you by taxes or regulation remains yours conditionally, on the sufferance of the state.

Obama’s teaching presents us with a crisis in understanding. Responding to a similar crisis in understanding, the greatest Republican responded: “Now I ask you in all soberness, if all these things, if indulged in, if ratified, if confirmed and endorsed, if taught to our children, and repeated to them, do not tend to rub out the sentiment of liberty in the country, and to transform this Government into a government of some other form.” The answer is yes, and it applies every bit as much to Obama’s teaching as it did to Stephen Douglas’s.